View source for Soviet deportations from Latvia

{{short description|Deportations in 1941 and 1945-1951}}
{{Population transfer in the Soviet Union}}

'''Soviet deportations from Latvia''' were a series of mass [[deportation]]s by the [[Soviet Union]] from [[Latvia]] in 1941 and 1945–1951, in which around 60,000 inhabitants of Latvia were deported to inhospitable remote areas of the Soviet Union, which had [[Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940|occupied the country in 1940]] and [[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1944)|again in 1944/1945]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Kaprāns|first=Mārtiņš|title=The Tradition of Deportation Commemoration|url=http://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/history/2-soviet-occupation/the-tradition-of-deportation-commemoration/|access-date=2020-06-06|publisher=[[Museum of the Occupation of Latvia]]|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Similar deportations were organized by the Soviet regime in the fellow occupied [[Baltic states]] of [[Estonia]] and [[Lithuania]] at the same time.

Alongside smaller forced population removals, the main waves of deportation were:

* The [[June deportation]] of 14 June 1941 of around 14,000–15,500 people and their families, including young children under the age of 10.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schwartz|first=Katrina Z. S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CYK_H-759KUC&q=%22deportations+from+Latvia%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA54|title=Nature and National Identity After Communism: Globalizing the Ethnoscape|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre|year=2006|isbn=978-0-8229-7314-0|pages=54–56|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Donald|first1=Stephanie|title=The Lost Children of Latvia: Deportees and Postmemory in Dzintra Geka's The Children of Siberia|date=2017-02-09|url=http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/31943/|work=Childhood and Nation in Contemporary World Cinema: borders and encounters|pages=63–88|editor-last=Hemelryk Donald|editor-first=Stephanie|place=New York|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|language=en|isbn=978-1-5013-1858-0|access-date=2020-12-18|last2=Brūveris|first2=Klāra|editor2-last=Wilson|editor2-first=Emma|editor3-last=Wright|editor3-first=Sarah}}</ref> This wave of deportations was mostly directed at the local Latvian and minority intelligentsia and political-social-economic elite, labeled by the Soviet security services as "suspect and socially alien elements".<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Rislakki|first=Jukka|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f6bDXmbPRAEC&q=deportations+Latvia&pg=PA161|title=The Case for Latvia: Disinformation Campaigns Against a Small Nation : Fourteen Hard Questions and Straight Answers about a Baltic Country|publisher=Rodopi|year=2008|isbn=978-90-420-2423-6|pages=159.–161|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Ellington|first=Lucien|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lVBB1a0rC70C&q=deportation&pg=PA134|title=Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture|date=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-800-6|pages=134|language=en}}</ref> Out of all the deportees, approximately 5,000 or around 34%-40% of the total number died in exile, on the journey or in executions;<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Latvia - Repressions|url=https://communistcrimes.org/en/countries/latvia|access-date=2020-08-05|website=Latvia {{!}} Communist Crimes|publisher=[[Estonian Institute of Historical Memory]]|language=en}}</ref>
* The second deportation under [[Operation Priboi]] of 25 March 1949, when 42,113–43,000 people were deported.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|date=2004-08-16|title=Soviet Mass Deportations from Latvia|url=https://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/policy/development-co-operation/789-briefing-papers/5260-soviet-mass-deportations-from-latvia|access-date=2020-06-06|website=[[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia]]|archive-date=2020-06-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200610122339/https://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/policy/development-co-operation/789-briefing-papers/5260-soviet-mass-deportations-from-latvia|url-status=dead}}</ref> This time, the victims were mostly individual farmers, together with their family members, who were refusing to join the newly established collective farms (''[[kolkhoz]]'') and were included in the "[[kulak]] lists" of 1947, as well as members and supporters of the [[Forest Brothers|armed anti-Soviet resistance]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ph.D|first=Kevin C. O'Connor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OOdjCAAAQBAJ&q=deportation|title=The History of the Baltic States, 2nd Edition|date=2015-06-04|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-61069-916-7|pages=178;179|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Schwartz|first=Katrina Z. S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CYK_H-759KUC&q=%22deportations+from+Latvia%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA54|title=Nature and National Identity After Communism: Globalizing the Ethnoscape|date=2006 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre|isbn=978-0-8229-7314-0|pages=54.–56|language=en}}</ref> Of the total number of deportees, more than 5000 people died in exile.<ref name=":0" />
The deportations of 1944 are also sometimes singled out among these.<ref>{{Cite book|last=McDowell|first=Linda|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=acG3AAAAQBAJ&q=%22Soviet+deportations+from+Latvia%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA177|title=Hard Labour: The Forgotten Voices of Latvian Migrant 'Volunteer' Workers|date=2013-09-05|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-05714-6|pages=177|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=phw8AAAAIAAJ&q=%22deportations+from+Latvia%22+-wikipedia|title=The Baltic Review #1-3|publisher=Committees for a Free Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania|year=1953|pages=37|language=en}}</ref>

People from Latvia were mostly resettled to [[Amur Oblast|Amur]], [[Tomsk Oblast|Tomsk]], and [[Omsk Oblast|Omsk]] regions. Several smaller scale deportations took place during the Soviet occupation, especially of [[Baltic Germans|ethnic Germans]], stateless persons from [[Riga]], and [[Jehovah's Witnesses]]. After [[De-Stalinization|destalinization]], internment in camps was a punishment reserved for people engaged in "anti-Soviet" behaviour.<ref name=":0" />

== See also ==
* [[Commemoration Day for the Victims of Communist Genocide]]
* [[Forest Brothers]]
*[[Birch bark letters from Siberia]]

== References ==
<references />
{{Occupation of Baltic states}}
{{Latvia topics}}

[[Category:Latvia in World War II]]
[[Category:Forced migration in the Soviet Union|Latvia]]
[[Category:Soviet ethnic policy]]
[[Category:1949 in Latvia]]
[[Category:Latvian Jews]]
[[Category:Deportation from Latvia]]
[[Category:Home front during World War II]]
[[Category:Political and cultural purges]]
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet military occupations]]
[[Category:Human rights in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic]]
[[Category:Occupation of the Baltic states]]
[[Category:Russians in Latvia]]


{{Latvia-hist-stub}}